City of Masks

13

Mmmph. Cree. Hi. What's,uh, what's going on?" Edgar's voice was deep and sleep muffled. It would be three A.M. in Massachusetts; even ghost hunters had to sleep sometime. Cree pictured him sitting up in some rumpled hotel bed just like the one she was sitting in, his long face bleary and stubbled as he squinted at the digits of some clock radio just like the one she was squinting at. The image made her feel better.

"I had a real good one. I mean a bad one."

"One of those, huh." He sounded muzzy but very much there. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten this kind of call.

"Yeah. Hey, I didn't mean to wake you up – "

"No – no, 's fine. Just a little out of it. You know." She heard him work his lips, trying to get them functioning. "You want to talk about it?"

Cree had thought she did, but now realized she didn't. "No. What I really want is for you to… tell me about something."

"Like, uh – "

"Something regular that happened. Something, you know… normal. Nice."

"Nice. Nice. Urn." Ed took a moment to rally to the challenge.

"Well, today I went into Boston. Never really been to Beantown, thought I'd check things out? Took the T to get around. So I'm there on the platform, waiting for my train, and I look up and there's a sign that says, 'Take the Blue Line to Wonderland.' " He chuckled. "It sounds so… psychedelic, or something. Shades of Alice, I don't know."

Cree chuckled with him. It was very Ed to find amusement in that."What the hell is Wonderland?" he asked.

"Dog-racing track. Up in Revere."

"Oh, and then there was this guitarist, playing on the street with his guitar case open, people throwing money in? Mother and her two kids stop to listen, right, and the kids are eating ice-cream cones? And one of the kids drops his cone into the case, blop, right on its head! The mother is mortified. So when she picks it up, it's got coins stuck in the ice cream, I mean it's covered, like those, you know, what do you call them – "

"Jimmies."

"Yeah, jimmies. What a mess. I mean, what could anybody do? Pick out quarters and dimes one by one, get your hands all sticky? Throw it away? The guy was trying to be nice about it. Fortunately the mother left him a fiver, so maybe it wasn't such a bad deal after all. Funny." He was silent for a moment. "Sorry, Cree. Guess I'm kind of sleepy. Can't think of anything really great."

"No, that's good," Cree assured him. "Thanks."

They were both quiet for a long time. She realized she'd been childish, expecting Edgar to solve her late-night insecurities by long distance.

"Maybe you ought to just tell me about it," he suggested. He sounded more like his regular self.

"The witness is really on the edge. She's been seeing animals and half-animal, half-human figures. Highly interactive. They chase her and call her name – "

"Oh, man. So you're thinking it's psychological?"

"Well, I was. But I went to the house tonight. I got a really light touch in the library, but then I went upstairs and something came at me, scared the living bejeezus out of me. I'm having a hard time getting rid of it. I didn't really get a good visual, but I got enough to know she's not just hallucinating. I suspect the animals are by-products of the stress of being around the real entity. Whatever it is."

"But it's a bad one."

"A nasty one," Cree confirmed. "And I've got this unusual degree of identification, I mean, I'm picking up her gestures, I'm – "

"You don't have to do it, Cree. There are lots of screwed up things in the world, it's not your job to take them all on. If this one really gets to you, you should just – "

"No. I can't just leave this woman high and dry. She needs some support on this. She's a person at a critical passage." Cree sensed dubiousness on the other end of the line. "Plus, this is totally selfish, but she and I have a lot in common, and I keep thinking if I help her, maybe it's an opportunity to… sort through some of my own stuff."

Edgar sighed. Cree knew what he was thinking: Cree's losing her borders, the empath doing her job too well. And he was right.

"And there are some unusual elements here, I want to find out what we're dealing with. And I don't like feeling afraid – that what's out there is so awful we can't even look at it." She knew Edgar agreed with that, philosophically anyway, but he still didn't say anything. So she switched gears, tried to put on a chipper tone. "Anyway. So how're things at your end?"

"Today's… Sunday? I could be in New Orleans by Tuesday."

"No. I mean, no hurry. I'm okay, Ed, really. There's a lot more I should do here before we bring in all the artillery. I was just checking in. I shouldn't have called so late."

"Uh-huh." Skeptical.

"I feel much better, now. Thanks, Ed. You're the greatest." She was dodging again, they both knew it, but every word was true. Who else could she call with the heebie-jeebies at three A.M.? "I'm sorry I woke you up. You always make me feel better. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"You'd do fine, Cree. The real question is, what're you going to do with me." Just a little sad, a little miffed, mostly resigned.

And there was no answer to that. Cree thanked him again and told him good night, hoping he'd heard her, hoping it was enough.

Lakeside Manor, where Charmian Beauforte lived, wasn't actually on the lake but several blocks below it, not that far from the Warrens' house and just east of the huge park that stretched down from Ponchartrain toward the center of New Orleans. It was a gated retirement community of splendidly maintained lawns, gardens, and waterways centered around a cluster of private residences and larger common buildings. Cree stopped her car at the gatehouse, waited as the guard verified her appointment, then drove through when he raised the barrier.

Charmian Beauforte's house was one of a dozen similar houses built along a short cul-de-sac. All were one-story modern structures of brick with white trim in what Cree now knew enough to think of as a neoCreole cottage style. She checked her tape recorder and suppressed a twinge of trepidation: Over the telephone, Mrs. Beauforte came across as an aristocratic old bird, rather formidable. Whatever her stroke had done to her ten years ago, it hadn't subdued her pride or dulled her razor tongue.

It was almost eleven o'clock. Cree had awakened at eight to the muffled sound of jackhammers from a road repair crew starting up outside. She'd lurched out of bed and made coffee from the hotel brewing setup, sipping it as she looked down on Canal Street, seven floors below. A pair of cops did white-gloved mime to direct traffic around the road work, but the boulevard was choked with cars and pedestrians. Delivery trucks pulled onto the curb to disgorge supplies for the restaurants.

Daylight and the workaday bustle below brought with it a welcome relief from the troubling images of the night before. She still felt the murky hangover of nightmare, but she also felt oddly refreshed, confident. And it wasn't just the caffeine. Part of it was talking to Edgar: He really did give her strength and reassurance, more than he knew – his steadiness, the reliability of his concern and affection. And some of it was the residual high that close encounters brought, even bad ones: Mystery and danger had energizing powers, and she was a little addicted to them.

Whatever, she felt okay, and there was a lot to be done. After stoking down a diner breakfast of eggs and grits with a side of biscuits and gravy, she'd returned to the hotel and made phone calls. She'd scheduled the impending meeting with Mrs. Beauforte, then made appointments for later in the day with Dr. Fitzpatrick and with Detective Bobby Guidry, the lead investigator for the Temp Chase shooting. She'd tried to reach Lila Warren, too, but no one had picked up and she'd had to leave a message. That made her a little nervous, and she resolved to try again from Charmian's house.

A housemaid let her in and wordlessly led her to the kitchen at the back of the house. Cree found Mrs. Beauforte standing at the central island, arranging flowers in a crystal vase. Next to her on the counter was a bundle of untrimmed blooms, mostly roses. The kitchen was bright and immaculate, with a wall of windows opening to a backyard garden that was the obvious source of the flowers.

"Miz Black to see you, ma'am," the maid announced. She disappeared into another room.

"Ms. Black. How nice to meet you," Mrs. Beauforte said. She barely glanced at Cree before she selected a large rose, inspected it critically, and began trimming bits from it. "My son tells me you're already stirring up trouble." Each syllable was stretched and softened, the accent of Southern aristocracy, and spoken in a cool, dry voice; either her sense of humor was equally cool and dry, or she wasn't trying to be amusing.

"Doing my best to, anyway," Cree said. "That's a lovely rose!"

"You aren't what I expected. I had the impression you'd be pale and delicate – one of those ethereal wisps with the devastated eyes, that otherworldly yearning. I can see why Ro-Ro's attracted to you."

The old woman liked to keep people off balance, Cree decided, throwing two or three provocations at you at once. "Actually, I do have the otherworldly yearning pretty well covered. But I got my father's big bones, and you're right, they disguise it pretty well."

"Mmm." Mrs. Beauforte pruned the rose stem at a sharp angle and inserted it quickly among the others in the vase. She picked up another and began inspecting it closely. Her apparent disinterest in her guest was deliberate, Cree decided, intended to show this out-of-town charlatan ghost buster her place in the order of things: a mere hireling, a member of the laboring classes. She felt a flash of pity for the housemaid.

Mrs. Beauforte's straight back and square shoulders gave the impression of a bigger woman, but she was actually almost a head shorter than Cree. Lila had gotten her mother's nose and chin, no mistake, but while Lila had plumped and softened with age, Charmian had gone dry and sinewy. With her crisp white blouse and pants covered by a spotless raw linen apron, her yellow Smith amp; Hawken gardening clogs, her helmet of sculpted gray hair, the acute focus she gave to her flowers, she projected competence and vitality. Again Cree wondered just how the stroke had impaired her.

"As I explained over the phone," Cree began, "part of my process is to interview anyone close to a witness or who has spent time at the site of the haunting? You're both, so you were first on my list?" She caught the questioning tone of her statements and berated herself for feeling so intimidated. "I've got a lot of questions for you about your family, particularly Lila, and about Beauforte House – "

"Have you been to Decatur Street or Bourbon Street yet?"

"I spent some time in the Quarter my first night here. It's fascinating."

"Then you know that ghosts and hauntings are a New Orleans tradition. Did you see the cemetery tours they advertise? The voodoo tours? For ten dollars, you can ride in a van with a bunch of other tourists to five haunted houses and listen to the driver recite terrible tales. You can visit Marie Laveau's tomb at midnight. You can even pay to witness a voodoo ceremony complete with snakes and chickens and half-naked trance dancers."

"Yes, I saw a couple of ads – "

"I could go to any of a dozen voodoo queens or Cajun witches and hire supernatural services. To cure or kill someone, cast a love charm, find lost objects, read the future." For the first time, Mrs. Beauforte lifted her eyes to Cree's, a shrewd gaze. "Or banish ghosts. For, oh, about fifty dollars."

Cree wasn't sure where this was leading. Yet another declaration of skepticism from a Beauforte? Or another routine to make sure Cree knew her place?

"Great," Cree said. "And I can go visit old people's homes and retirement villages in Seattle, keep them company for a few hours, entirely on a voluntary basis. Some are kind of cranky, but if you just humor them they usually come around."

Mrs. Beauforte's right cheek tightened, but otherwise her face remained inscrutable. "Is this how you endear yourself to your clients?"

"Not usually. But I bet this is how you've tyrannized your kids all their lives."

The seamed cheek tugged again as Mrs. Beauforte put down her clipper and began pulling off her gloves. The twitch grew and Cree realized it was the beginning of a sardonic grin. Mrs. Beauforte took off her apron and brushed unnecessarily at the front of her blouse.

"I think you'll do, Ms. Black," she said, drily appreciative. "You may call me Charmian. Would you care for some tea?"

When Charmian moved away from the kitchen counter, carrying the vase of flowers, Cree immediately noticed her limp. Her left leg seemed reluctant, the toe slightly outturned, a well-concealed clumsiness at odds with her otherwise impeccable appearance and movements. So she had lost something from that stroke after all. She limped ahead of Cree through a large living room furnished in a tasteful mix of contemporary pieces and expensive replicas of antiques. There were a few photos on the mantel, showing Ron and Lila and some children Cree assumed to be Lila's, but otherwise the room struck her as somewhat impersonal, with few telling curios or mementos.

Charmian led her to a sunroom in which a silver tea service had already been laid out, a wisp of steam escaping the teapot's spout, as if the resolution of their first clash had been anticipated. Charmian set the vase on a white wrought-iron table, primped the blooms, sat, and beckoned Cree to the chair opposite her.

The housemaid remained invisible. They let the tea steep for a few minutes as Cree presented an overview of her theory of ghosts and her investigative methods. She concluded by explaining why it was crucial for her to understand Lila's state of mind.

Cree's return to the subject of Lila seemed to give Charmian an opening she'd wanted. "Do you have children, Ms. Black?"

Charmian's non sequiturs were calculated, Cree decided. They surprised and seemed to deflect you, but ultimately wove back in somehow, and it was best just to roll with them. "No. I often wish I did, but – "

"Then it may be hard for you to understand what I'm about to say.''With a steady, blue-veined hand, Charmian began pouring tea into two cups. "Whether they admit it or not, all parents harbor a secret hope that their children will be exceptional, will embody all their lineages' virtues and none of their failings. Now, of course I love my children. But I would be lying if I didn't admit they've disappointed me in many ways. Lila has always been prone to emotional frailty. She never had the… starch… I'd hoped to see in a child of mine. I've always believed you need a stiff upper lip and a firm chin to get by in this world, but she gives up too easily. She doesn't demand and therefore doesn't command respect. Her marriage to Jack Warren was just another example of her failure to respect herself or her family name. No doubt you're right, I tyrannized my children, I pushed them. But it was an attempt to get them to do their best. The world does not forgive those who squander what they've been given."

Cree thought of Deirdre's twins and how secure in themselves the girls were, and had to stifle the urge to argue parenting philosophy with Charmian Beauforte. Instead, she accepted the cup of tea Charmian handed her and took a sip of the richly aromatic brew.

"Why do you think that is? You're a powerful presence, there's a proud family history on both sides, Lila and Ronald were raised with every advantage. Why should Lila have been so… timid?"

"Perhaps it's those very advantages." Charmian's gray-blue eyes stayed on Cree's, conveying no emotion whatsoever. "Perhaps it's generational."

"How so?"

"Richard and I were born in 1929, right into the Great Depression. It took a terrible toll in New Orleans. The fortunes and holdings of both of our families were mostly lost. Under such circumstances, if pride is your only possession of value, you protect it fiercely. You learn to hold your chin up no matter what. My children were born in a time of plenty. Perhaps they never found their own strength because they never really had to."

Cree nodded. She could see it clearly in the wrinkles that creased Charmian's forehead and rayed from her shrewd eyes, the determined fold on each side of her mouth. And she could feel it in her – that iron resolve. It was impenetrable, inarguable, a solid, hard thing at the woman's very core. She wondered if Charmian had ever witnessed her daughter's hidden strength.

"How do you feel about Lila's wanting to move back into the house?"

"Naturally, I'd be very glad to see her living there."

"But it sounds as if Ronald is not equally keen on keeping it in the family – "

"Ronald has his own brand of weaknesses."

"Such as?"

The raying wrinkles at Charmian's eyes tightened. "Are such concerns really germane to the task at hand?"

"I don't know. But, generally, the more context the better."

Charmian thought about that for a moment. "His weaknesses are the same as those of many men of his class and age: bad investments and young women of unreliable character. He is unlikely to have children with his young flings, and posterity therefore doesn't loom large in his thinking. And he 'took a hit,' as he puts it, on Wall Street when the dot-com balloon popped. I don't know the details. But I suspect he sees the house as an asset that would do him more good liquidated, not as one that would serve a larger vision of himself and our family."

"So who actually owns the house?"

"I do. If we were to sell it, I would divide the money between Ronald and Lila." Charmian set down her cup and frowned. "This is not the sort of interview I expected to have with a ghost hunter."

"I'm mainly trying to draw a bead on Lila's state of mind," Cree reassured her. "What stresses might trigger her vulnerability to the ghost.

If there's tension between her and her brother, for example – " "So you believe there is a ghost at the house."

"What do you think? You lived there for, what, forty years. Did you ever encounter a ghost?"

Again Charmian's eyes held steady on Cree's. "What is a ghost, Ms. Black? A memory of times past that suddenly awakens with unbearable poignancy? Images of a loved one who's gone? The buried longings or regrets that one inevitably acquires with age and that sometimes spring unexpectedly to life? Those I lived with constantly, as I do here. But if you mean the species of ghost you specialize in, no, I didn't. Of course not." The old woman's gaze remained unrelenting, as if challenging Cree to refute what she was saying, or as if she had spotted Cree's inadvertent response.

"May I ask why you left? I know you had a stroke, but you seem very healthy…"

Channian sighed. "What you see today is the result of years of deliberate effort. For the first few years, I had very little use of my left arm or leg. The doctors were concerned that I was prone to another stroke. Here at Lakeside, I have every imaginable convenience and none of those wretched stairs. I pursue the best physical therapy available in the facility's clinic. There are medical staff in residence twenty-four hours a day if I need them."

"But do you believe in ghosts?"

"What on earth does it matter what I believe?"

"I'm just wondering why you're willing to grant me any credence at all, even to talk with me now. Ronald certainly doesn't."

"I'm talking with you because my daughter requested I do so."

Charmian studied the vase of flowers critically and took a moment to adjust several of the roses. It was clear to Cree there was more there.

"And?"

"And at my age, I have learned not to discount the possibility that the world is stranger than people usually assume."

Cree nodded. "But when Lila tells you she's seen a ghost, what do you say? You either believe her or don't believe her. You either think she's nuts, or she's onto something. Which is it?"

"You're looking for yet another proof of my failure to support my daughter, aren't you. Another example of my supposed tyranny." Charmian's tone suggested anger, but Cree got the clear sense she enjoyed this kind of fencing. "Or are you really asking whether a ghost drove me out of Beauforte House?"

"Is that what happened?"

Charmian's poker face remained perfect, inscrutable. "Answering questions with questions – that's a technique used by both police interrogators and psychiatrists, isn't it? Do tell me, which role are you playing?" She held Cree's gaze for a moment, not really wanting an answer, then checked her wristwatch. "You know, I have a lunch date with some of the other residents at one o'clock. If you have any questions that are actually relevant to this… situation, we'd better get to them."

That was all right with Cree. Whatever else she had evaded, Charmian had clearly indicated that certain kinds of probing were not welcome. It was a point worth pondering, but for now it was obvious that further efforts would only antagonize her. So Cree poured herself another cup of tea and began asking the standard questions.

"One of my focal concerns will be the house itself," Cree told her. I'd like to know more about its architectural history, especially any renovations. It's often hard to tell at first who a ghost is, or even what era it's from. But if I can put dates to when the floor plan might have been changed, I can compare the ghost's behavior to the layout of the house. A ghost walking through a wall, for example, suggests that it lived there when that wall wasn't there, or when there used to be a door at that place. We call it spatiotemporal divergence, and it's an important clue for the parapsychologist. Do you have any architectural schematics for the house?"

"My husband was very fortunate to find the original builder's drawings before we renovated in 1948. He made every effort to stay true to the historic plan of the house, so I think you'll find the layout has changed little, if at all."

"Do you still have those drawings?"

"We gave them to Tulane University, the School of Architecture archives. We felt that students and historians should have access to them."

"Excellent." Cree made a note. "And do you know anything about the people who lived in the house before you and Richard moved in? Family names, dates…?"

Charmian shook her head. "It had stood empty for at least ten years. So many of the fine houses did then. Before that, I don't know. You'll no doubt find records of who owned it down at City Hall. But who actually lived there is another story."

"Do you remember hearing any anecdotes from before you and Richard moved in? Did you ever have conversations, with neighbors, say, about the prior occupants?"

"About murders, gruesome accidents, tragic illnesses?" Charmian's cheek twitched, a signal she was amused.

"Those, or whatever – marriages, babies born, illnesses, love affairs -?"

"Or ghosts?"

"Sure." Cree just smiled at her.

Charmian shook her head. "We were newlyweds. If there was any gossip about unpleasantness at the house, I'm sure I did my best to ignore it. And if I ever did hear any, that was fifty years ago – I've long forgotten it."

"What about gossip from when the first Beaufortes lived there?"

That was a different matter. Charmian did remember some stories her husband had told her about when his great-great-grandfather, the general, lived there. Jean Claire Armand Beauforte had led Confederate troops in several important battles and returned a hero to his home city in 1865. The house had been empty for a time after its occupation by Union troops in 1862, but it was still in good condition. In the years that followed, New Orleans suffered under the exploitation of Yankee carpetbaggers, and the transition from a slave economy was difficult for both black and white. Still, the Beauforte name had prestige, and the general used it to his family's advantage. He sold off his up river plantations and with the proceeds established a foundry that thrived throughout his lifetime. He died at the house in 1878, one of many victims of the yellow fever epidemic that swept the city that year.

His son, John Frederick, didn't do as well. The Reconstruction was hard on New Orleans, sending the city into a decline that it didn't recover from until the Louisiana oil boom and burgeoning war industries brought the economy back to life in the 1940s. Sugar and cotton prices fell. Trade on the river waned, and John Frederick was slow to modernize the Beaufortes' businesses. He kept the family going by selling off parcels of the land around the house, until by 1890 it stood on the urban lot it now occupied. When he died, his widow sold the property.

"I do recall a Beauforte legend from that period," Charmian said. "One that might interest you. John Frederick killed one of his servants."

"What!"

"John Frederick had been born in the era of slavery and never really adapted to the idea that his servants were now free people. It was not at all uncommon in those years. He believed in, shall we say, 'firm discipline.' Apparently there was a horseman, a big, strapping Negro, who gave him a great deal of trouble. One night they came to blows, and John Frederick beat him to death with the fireplace poker. Richard's father wasn't born until twenty years later, but he used to tell the tale with a… certain amount of pride."

Cree couldn't hide a shiver of revulsion. "Do you remember the servant's name? Or when this happened?"

"Lionel. Just the first name, Lionel. I believe this was in the 1880s."

"Was John Frederick charged for the murder?"

Charmian's mouth turned down as if the question were absurd. "A white man killing a truculent black servant? Not in that century! But I take it that's the sort of thing that arouses your morbid curiosity?"

It was the second time Charmian had made a point about the role of violence or trauma in hauntings, and Cree felt it deserved to be addressed. "There is often a morbid element to my job, it's true. But it has to do with how extracorporeal manifestations originate. My partner, Edgar Mayfield, has a theory that powerful emotions create electromagnetic 'broadcasts' that imprint naturally occurring geomagnetic fields. They're like tape recordings that replay under the right conditions. Not every emotion is intense enough to accomplish that imprinting. It makes sense that mortal moments are full of intense feelings, so often the ghost is a reenactment of the state of mind he or she had at death. But that varies greatly. People might feel shock and fear, or horror and anger. Or they might feel a surge of affection or concern for loved ones, or intense relief and ecstatic serenity. Quite often, they relive memories of important earlier experiences, recollections that may not seem directly connected with what happened at the moment of death. The range of perseverating experiences varies enormously."

"So conceivably, agreeable, or… happy emotions could also become ghosts."

"Absolutely. But usually perseverating emotions tend to be feelings that are unresolved – the frustrated need for closure or resolution seems to be a constant." Unexpectedly, the image of Mike's face, full of that yearning, came to Cree and her voice faltered. But she banished it and went on deliberately: "That's the one thing the folklore has right. Ghosts are most often created when the individual dies with something important pending, up in the air, unexpressed, and their dying emotions usually orbit around that yearning for closure. Positive emotions are not as often so unresolved. So my interest in deaths and so on really isn't my own morbid curiosity. It's just that I don't often get called to investigate a happy or benign ghost. I consider it one of the… downsides of my profession."

Charmian's gaze showed she caught the undercurrents in Cree's comments. She thought about it for another moment and then asked, "So the ghost that's ostensibly terrorizing my daughter, it's an unpleasant one? Of course it is – that's why it's so upsetting for her."

" I 'm sorry, but Lila has asked rne not to discuss the specifics with anyone." Cree almost gave her statement the inflection of a question, that irritating propensity for turning tentative around Charmian's forcefulness.

"Why on earth? I'm her mother!" Charmian tucked her chin indignantly.

"Because she's afraid you'll think she's crazy. That she's weak. She's very concerned with what you and Ronald and Jack think of her. She longs for your respect and doesn't want to lose what little she feels she has. I also think she wants to process this by herself, without anyone's interference, however well meaning. And I think that's a wise decision, because she needs to master this on her own terms."

Charmian raised one eyebrow. "I had no idea this was such a… nuanced process," she said drily.

Cree shrugged. "Can be."

The sweet scent of roses thickened as sun squares from the windows inched across the tiled floor. Cree steered Charmian back into more recent times, trying to assemble in her mind a list of the people who had inhabited the house. During Charmian's life there, it was a short list: Richard, Charmian, Ronald, Lila. Charmian's brother Bradford had stayed at the house for a time before he got his own place, and was a constant visitor. Houseguests stayed over now and then – friends and relatives. And of course there were the servants. Charmian remembered the names of many of them; she'd employed four different live-in housemaids and five or six groundskeepers from 1972 until her stroke in 1991. Before that, they'd had the same housemaid from the mid-1950s until Richard's death: Josephine, who'd been a mainstay of the household and nanny to both kids, raising them from birth until boarding school. Where any of them were now, God only knew. Only one person had died at the house during the forty-one years Charmian had lived there: Richard, who had died of a heart attack in 1972, leaving Charmian a widow.

Charmian's face became inscrutable again as she told about Richard's death. Then she paused and fixed her raptor's gaze on Cree. "You're a widow, too, aren't you," she stated.

Caught off balance, Cree just looked at her.

"It's not just that you call yourself Ms. Black but wear a wedding ring. Let's just say I recognize the… signs. When our conversation approaches certain topics. I know the symptoms. The style." Charmian raised her own gnarled hand to show Cree the gold band she also wore, and her unrelenting eyes took on a satisfied look. Pleased at her own insight, or at Cree's discomfort? Both, Cree thought. And maybe, just maybe, there was some genuine commiseration there, too, appreciation for this small measure of shared circumstances.

"I ordinarily answer yes," Cree confessed, suddenly tentative again."But I've been wondering if there's a time limit for it. The way people who are recently divorced say, 'I'm divorced,' but at some point they say, 'I'm single'? Maybe I'm… single."

Charmian appeared not to have heard her. Instead, she moved her hand among her roses again. "You know, I only select the very best. A bloom past its peak will not have the scent, and it'll quickly shed its petals. So one gets an instinct for knowing when a rose is at its prime. For cutting it at just the right moment. And even then, perfection is a fleeting thing." She paused and then went on with certainty: "You are not past your peak, Ms. Black. You are in prime bloom, and you should not waste that bloom. At the same time, you are indeed a widow. Very much so. A most difficult dilemma, I'm sure. Oh, you conceal it well – the chipper smile, the quick recovery, the dogged persistence, the pretense that you haven't heard or been affected by insults. The blue-collar-with-a-Ph. D., wholesome, plain-Jane girl-Columbo act. But when all is said and done, they are all stopgap stratagems, aren't they. Because none can solve the fundamental problem – the best they do is postpone the reckoning. Yes, I am familiar with such."

Charmian leaned back to watch Cree's response closely. Her eyes took on that satisfied gleam as she saw she'd hit her mark, saw Cree's utter inability to think of a comeback. But there was the other glint there, too, the ancient, enduring thing that verged on commiseration. After a moment she stood up briskly, then quickly caught the edge of the table as her reluctant leg didn't quite get under her in time.

"And now I have to get ready for my luncheon with the ladies. Club sandwiches, bridge to follow. And then my physical therapy session. You can see I live a demanding life."

Cree had found her breath again. "Can we talk again soon?"

Straight-backed, regal, Charmian paused at the doorway to the sunroom. "Why, I look forward to it! I haven't enjoyed myself so much in years."